There are some events that are bound to shock people.

Cataclysm, murders, life shaking events, there are multiple things that can traumatize an individual, but lives goes on, and everyone tries to come to accept the bleak side of reality. For Misato, one of such events was to see the Evangelion acting like a possesed monster, back when the fight with the tenth angel happened. That day shattered her life even more that it already was, but by clinging on some of the shattered pieces, she was founding a way to keep going, like she had done before after the Second Impact.

But even after regaining some sanity, Misato had some doubts in her mind. She never was that attached on NERV's belief, as she entered in the association only as a way to cope with her dad's demise; but she never ever thought of betraying NERV either. Even after Kaji's demise, that probably was something NERV orchestrated, Misato didn't make the decisive step to take a stance against Gendo. But the images of that damned day were burned in her mind. She tried to justify the strange, destructive behaviour of EVA-01 as something brought forth by the Angel, and not by the weapon built by humans, suppressing every clue that indicated how the EVA could be something dangerous. She succeeded in stopping her doubts, but then, seeing Mari triggering Berserk-mode again on Unit-02, Misato's fortitude broke. The scene of the beast like mecha, carving away the Angel's core, was not as frightening as the one from the Tenth Angel's fight, but was a representation of something worse than a single traumatizing scene. Seeing the EVA, the last bastion of humanity, behave like mad demons was becoming a routine.

She couldn't trust those weapons anymore.

"Annihilation of the Eleventh Angel confirmed, Blue pattern signal gone"

In the command room the usual mild celebrations for an accomplished mission echoed, while Misato glanced directly towards Ristuko. Given that the Angel was defeated, Gendo retired to his office, together with Fuyustuki, giving to Misato the perfect chance to approach her friend Ritsuko, to ask her for some explanations.

"Ritsuko, what was that? Why can the EVA units become something like it?"

"I actually don't understand it. What Mari is doing on the Unit-02, is unprecedented. She disconnect every control between us and her EVA, and after that it seems like the unit is powered up by some unknown power surge."

"You're vague Ritsuko"

Misato's tone was growing more and more.

"I've known you for too much, I can understand when you hide something. You actually have an idea on what's happening right?"

Ritsuko had grown silence

"Spit it out, I don't care if this then could be wrong. I want to know what you think."

Ritsuko stood there for a bit, thinking to herself about what to do.

"I have an hypotesis, follow me to the lab"

—

The two women stood in the lab, Misato eagerly waiting for an explanation, Ritsuko nervously watching around her to check no-one else followed them.

"So, what's the hypotesis you were talking about?"

Seeing that the room was clear, Ritsuko started answering Misato's question.

"Say Misato, you know what is needed to be a Children, to pilot an EVA?"

"The exact reason was never explained to me, usually there are some calculations based on one's mental wavelenght to decide if that person is capable of becoming a Children. But I know nothing of the exact parameters that are analyzed"

"But you know that Shinji's school is in reality a facility to monitor possible candidates right?"

"Well, yes. But how does this explain what we've seen?"

"See, the Children are not chosen among a bunch of candidates, they are created, and every candidate is a subject of the experiment to construct new pilots. Nothing inhuman, we just adapt the lessons they take, the media the experience and how they live their day to day life to stimulate little changes in how their brain behaves. By doing this we hoped to make some of the teenagers attending Neo-Tokyo school possible Children candidates. And this is also why all the Children we have attend that school, it's a way to keep their brain in the perfect shape to connect to the EVA."

Misato listened to her friend, but something didn't seem right in her explanation.

"Wait, Ritsuko. Shinji never attended those classes before piloting Unit-01, but he actually succeeded. Not only that, he also activated that monster-like mode that Mari used both against the Tenth and Elevent Angel."

Ritsuko pointed at Misato with a pen,showing that she agreed with her reasoning.

"Exactly, but you see…Shinji is kind of peculiar. He didn't need to have his brain meddled with to synchonize with Unit-01, that's because…Unit-01 absorbed Shinji's mom during the testing of the Unit. Her mom became one with the Eva's body, fusing her blood with the one of the biological side of the EVA. So I think Shinji was capable of synchronizing with the EVA not through is mind alone, but also through blood."

Ritsuko reached for a dossier she kept under her desk and handed it over to Misato. The files were old, and they were signed by Naoko Akagi, Ritsuko's mother and lead of the EVA project before the daughter took over, following the mother's demise.

"I always was curious about Shinji's development, so I made some research and found out this recently. It's the dossier describing the Project-E first years."

In that dossier was proof of what Ritsuko just said. A description of what happened during the testing of Unit-01.

Shinji was there

He saw what happened to her mother

Even if the death itself was not described in detail, as no-one actually saw the body after she entered the entry-plug, the dossier gave Misato a unpleasant sensation of gruesomeness. She could only imagine how confused and scared must have been the toddler Shinji, assisting to those events.

"Wait, isn't this the same thing that happened to Shinji?"

"Calm down, there's a key difference. Shinji's wavelenght are still in there, while Yui's disappeared right after the incident. But, getting back on track, I still have to explain my hypotesis on the EVA behaviour; even if you probably understand where I'm going."

"Do you think Mari has some kind of blood connection to Unit-02? It's not possible, Mari is American, while Unit-02 was developed in EURO NERV"

"I don't think Mari has the same kind of connection as Shinji, I think she could have a different connection. What I suspect, is that she has the same blood as the EVA, and because of that she can actually stimulate the biological body of the EVA to surpass the containment armor and unleash its full power."

"Is something like that even possible? Isn't EVA's blood poison for our body?"

"I don't know for sure, there's no record of any experiment involving the EVA's blood… but I don't think it's impossible"

Misato was tired of the conversation, she understood the hypotesis Ritsuko made, but she missed one key factor to understand the reasoning behind the hypotesis itself.

"Ritsuko, exactly, what's an Evangelion."

Ritsuko fell in silence for a bit, then she mustered the faith in her friend needed to involve her in that secret.

"The EVA are artifical Angels. And the Angels' blood is not incompatible with humans'"